Your talented troupe of employees are your business’s number one asset. They are the key to your excellence in customer service, your ability to do the job right the first time, and to ensuring your company’s growth. They are the main ingredient in your recipe for success. And you want to keep them happy within your ranks.

A great way to ensure that your energetic employees maintain their enthusiasm for the job is to give them a reason to jump for joy. And this could be group health insurance.

But before you make any leap-inspiring announcements, you will need to examine this option more closely.

Consider the Pros

There are obvious–and not so obvious–benefits to offering a group health plan under the new rules introduced by Obamacare.

• Tax Benefits. Expenses associated with health insurance are completely tax-deductible on both your state and federal returns. Plus, employers with twenty-five or less employees who earn an average of less than $50,000 per annum may be eligible for a 50% tax credit, providing that they pay at least half of their employees’ premium expenses.

• Employee Retention. Any endeavor that results in holding on to valuable employees offers a financial return including money saved in searching for, hiring, and training new people. Benefits also elevate the morale of your team which translates into increased productivity and less absences. Plus, you will be in a better position to attract the cream of the crop for future hires. In fact, “Reasons to Purchase Group Insurance” reports that a survey of small business owners showed that offering a group health insurance plan decreased turnover by 78%, aided employee recruitment by 75%, and increased productivity by 64%.

Consider the Cons

While the benefits are impressive, it is important to also weigh the downside of group health.

• Administration. On top of the costs of the plan, itself, you will also need to factor in the expenses related to the introduction and continuous administration of the policy.

• Potential for Mass Exodus. Since the introduction of Obamacare, some businesses have seen some employees–particularly those with lower incomes–opt out of their group plans and choose, instead, to obtain their own individual plans at lower premiums. According to “Affordable Care Act Creates Tough Healthcare Choices for Small Businesses,” “from the employees’ perspective the Marketplace may provide a better deal because of the mandatory coverage and benefits which the plans must provide, and the tax credits employees may receive.”

Consider the Types of Plans

• Size. One of the first things you need to determine is what type of plan you require. A Small Business Plan varies according to state, but this definition usually applies to companies with two to fifty employees. A mid-sized plan has fifty to one hundred workers, while a large group plan involves over one hundred people.

• Provider. If you currently have a group plan in place, you may wish to stay with your provider. You can also peruse the offerings of other private insurers. But you can now engage in one-stop comparison shopping on SHOP, the Small Business Health Options Program. Yes, this handy website not only lets you find the best policy to meet your needs, but it also enables you to calculate the amount of any subsidies or tax credits you qualify for.

• Cost. The type of policy you opt for will also depend on how much you want to pay. Typically, insurance companies employ one of three methods to calculate premium costs. “Group Insurance Health FAQ” explains the medical underwriting, the adjusted community rating, and the rating bands methods in detail.

In your quest to keep your grade A group of employees intact, you may wish to opt for a group health plan. It may be exactly what your team needs to keep them happy and jumping for joy.

Does your small business offer a group health plan? Why or why not?

Kimberley Laws is a freelance writer and avid blogger. You can follow her at The Embiggens Project and Searching for Barry Weiss.

Image courtesy of Thinkstock.com.

There is an axiom out there that says “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing”. There’s another saying that advises us that “Too much of a good thing isn’t good for you.” Both of them could be used in reference to Big Data. But whatever cliché, saying, axiom, or pithy phrase you use, thing may just be getting to the point of where people are beginning to get fed up with Big Data.

We live in a society where the next big thing is pushed into our faces 24/7, hyped to ludicrous levels and more overexposed than a nude sunbather standing in Times Square, until we eventually get sick of it and start actually disliking the subject in question. Is this where we’re headed with Big Data? Here are some reasons why we may be doing just that.

There’s Too Much Information

Informed decisions are the best kinds of decisions to make. So, obviously, you need information. But there’s such a thing as having TOO much information. If you’re asked to choose one of three paths, you can probably make a choice in a reasonable amount of time. Ah, but what if you now have THIRTY paths to choose from?

The problem with Big Data is that the sheer volume of data can result in gridlock when it comes to making goals for your business. After all, you want to take data into account when making decisions and goals, but even when it’s distilled into digestible pieces, which pieces do you base your company’s direction on? Your business could stall thanks to Big Data information overload.

Expectations Versus Reality

Although Big Data has been around for years, the term has taken a stronger, more profound meaning thanks to the Internet age and all the innovations it’s brought with it. Many people have been swept off their feet at the prospect of having reams of data stored in the cloud, ready with demographics, sales figures, search histories, and other information, all to be used to fashion a can’t miss business strategy.

And yes, that can happen. But the sheer amount of information, the resources and personnel needed for a business to adequately take advantage of Big Data, the steps (in other words, time) it takes to make the information useful, can really offset whatever benefits gleaned from using Big Data in the first place.

All of a sudden, there’s cold water thrown on those nice expectations that Big Data will be the miracle pill to ensure financial success.

Privacy Concerns Backlash

Funny thing about data that covers demographics, user search histories, sites visited, shopping habits, et al; it requires storing all of this information about everyday people and what they do, in order to put in a useable form. Eventually, you get people wondering just how much of their lives are being monitored and the results stored, collated, distilled, and sent to companies. Suddenly, privacy becomes a thing.

And not only is privacy a concern, but so is security. Just go online and type the words “data breach” or “hacked data” in a search engine, and read the news stories about companies whose data has been compromised by hackers. Consumers and regulators alike will certainly bring scrutiny and pressure on companies using Big Data.

Small Data? Seriously?

Yes, now Small Data is a thing. And it may just end up challenging Big Data. Small Data organizes and packages information that is timely and useful and hooks people up with the information. It’s meant to be easily accessed, easily understood, and able to be acted upon in everyday roles.

You can always tell when a concept has grown out of control when a new concept arises that is in direct opposition to it. So now we have Small Data as an alternative to the ever-present Big Data.

It’s not as if Big Data is in danger of vanishing anytime soon. There’s still a lot of love for it out there, and it certainly can be used to improve the customer’s experience. A lot of people really do enjoy drinking from the fire hose. The only problem is, if that fire hose is allowed to just keep gushing water, the levels will rise, and you can drown.

Byline: John Terra has been a freelance writer since 1985. He prefers not to drink from fire hoses, figuratively or literally.

When a disaster hits, the most important thing at the time is getting through it safely. Once the disaster blows over (either figuratively or literally!), then the biggest priority is making sure everyone’s okay, followed by assessing the damage. But once it’s clear that everyone made it through the crisis and you have a good idea of just how much damage has been done, there comes a crucial step that will determine just how fast and how completely you’ll bounce back, and that’s implementing what recovery measures you have in place.

Insurance isn’t enough, by the way. Sure, it will cover property damage to one extent or another, depending on the policy, but no plan will cover your loss of valuable data, or all of those customers who wander off because your company can’t fulfill their needs. Besides, have you ever had to sit around waiting for a claim to be paid? You need a plan, and you need it now.

Create a disaster recovery plan, write it down, share it with your co-workers, and hope you never have to use it.

It’s easy, when the sun is out and life is going well, to think that a disaster will happen to someone else, not to your business, your property, or yourself personally. But things can turn on a dime, and that feeling that all’s right with the world can vanish just as fast it as came. That’s why it’s prudent to be prepared for disaster recovery before you actually need it. Here’s how you can put together a contingency that hopefully you’ll never need to use!

Come Up With A Plan, Define Its Parameters

Gather together appropriate representatives and managers from all of your company’s critical departments: management, IT, security, building management, records, whatever else, and outline what elements of your business are the most vulnerable and consequently require the most protection.

The plan needs to be documented and shared with everyone involved, so that there’s no weak link or personnel out of the loop. Everyone needs to be on board and kept up to date, including contact information, and designated areas of responsibility when trouble hits. This means training employees on what their specific roles are in the event of a disaster.

Backup, Backup, Backup!

Did we happen to mention that you should have backups of all of your data? Your hardware can be replaced; your building can be repaired, but if you lose all of that precious company data, financial figures, customer accounts, contacts, personnel files, then your business is crippled. Recovery back to the point you were at before the disaster will be difficult if not impossible.

You need to follow the Backup Rule of Three. Make three copies of data that you deem important (and feel free to be generous in your definition of important!); use two different formats (e.g. flash drive and hard disk), and have one offsite backup. After all, if your building burned down, it wouldn’t matter if you had your data stored on two different media if both were located within that pile of ashes that used to be your business.

This is why it’s absolutely crucial that one copy of your data be located off-site. Maybe it’s cloud backup storage (BackBox, SkyDrive, or DropBox, for instance), or maybe it’s physically stored elsewhere. Whatever your choice, don’t put all of your data in one vulnerable basket that could be washed away by a sudden flash flood, or blown away by a tornado.

Recovery Protocol

The advantage of cloud-based backup is that it’s easily accessible, making recovery simpler. As long as you have access to hardware, you can bring back the data in no time. But whichever medium you use, the final thing to take into consideration is implementing the plan as fast as possible and resume normal business operations. This means deciding what order things will be restored; setting priorities and acting on them.

Recovery need not be limited to abstract things like data. It’s also wise to have an idea of how the physical location will be made usable again, and that includes mundane things like clean up, salvage, and restoration of utilities.

One More Time: Plan!

No doubt you’ve heard the cliché about people who didn’t succeed didn’t plan to fail, they failed to plan. That cliché holds a lot of truth, especially in the area of disaster recovery. So, create a plan based on input from your departments, train people in the plan, back up your data to multiple locations, and implement the plan based on a pre-set priority.

You may not be able to control the weather, seismic faults, or which way a wildfire goes, but you sure can take control of your own recovery.

Byline: John Terra has been a freelance writer since 1985. He’s a devout believer in the multiple media backup idea, and always carries a flash drive with him.